


Night is Falling Across the Sea

by Redisaid



Series: When We Were Falling [3]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft
Genre: Banshee Sylvanas, But it's not that sad, F/F, Falling Universe, Happy Falling Anniversary, Introspection, Stream of Consciousness, This is not a happy one this time, You monsters..., sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 14:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redisaid/pseuds/Redisaid
Summary: Set toward the end of Falling Down. The newly minted Banshee Queen Sylvanas reflects on the news that Jaina made it out of Lordaeron alive, and is thriving as she leads the new city of Theramore across the sea.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Sylvanas Windrunner
Series: When We Were Falling [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1440448
Comments: 42
Kudos: 156





	Night is Falling Across the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> One year ago today, I published the first part of the Falling series. Thank you all so much for joining me on what ended up being a very emotional journey throughout the continuation of that. 
> 
> Some of you have asked for particular moments to be explored upon further. No one asked for this moment, but it stood out a lot in my mind as something significant, and might answer some additional questions that people have had. Maybe I will do one of the ones you have requested on the anniversary of the series' completion...

It was a strange thing to have a desk again. Not even a very nice one. But it was hers. Just having anything that was hers alone was still something Sylvanas was getting used to.

Even as she wrote out this last missive, she found herself looking at her hands. Ungloved, they were ashen and strange, yet formed the letters of her handwriting as they always had. They remembered how to write flowing Thalassian script and more rigid Common letters. They were still making their best attempt at crude Orcish runes. And yet she couldn't help but eye them warily, both the one held the paper and the other moved the pen, as if they would at any moment stop following the words in her thoughts, and instead obey another's command.

Sylvanas found herself seeking places of silence lately, if only to confirm that the only thoughts she could hear in her mind were her own. She wondered when she would be able to give up that new habit. She wondered if she ever could.

But this desk. This office. These chambers. Like everything the Forsaken had left to them, it was all salvaged from the ruins of Lordaeron, then dragged down into its catacombs to fashion something new out of the wreckage of the old. 

Sylvanas wondered at what human might have written at this desk. Some officer, no doubt, who had spilled a pot of ink in one of the drawers, who had probably discovered the same creak on the corner if one leaned too much of one's weight there. Such rambling, useless, sentimental thoughts. But they were hers. Only hers. No one else’s.

A knock interrupted them. Having a door to hide behind again was another old, but new experience, as was being in the company of beings civilized enough to remember knocking and other polite niceties.

"Enter," Sylvanas said.

That voice. She still wasn't used to it. In the months now that she had spent back in this body, barking orders, commanding again, she still couldn't stand the sound of her own double-toned voice. Physical and ethereal. Dead, and something too close to living.

Another that must have understood her struggles well moved quietly through the door frame before shutting the heavy door behind her. Clea's body moved as it always had in life, though she had only gained it back mere months ago. Sylvanas had to wonder if she too watched her hands write, or lace up her boots, or draw arrows from her quiver.

"I have reports," Clea offered as she approached the desk. Yet she wasn't carrying any papers.

"I see none in your hand," Sylvanas indicated.

Clea's voice switched to the native Thalassian so suddenly that it hit Sylvanas like a rogue wave, "That's because I bring news of things you had requested me to investigate quietly."

"Ah, and quiet you are," Sylvanas responded in kind, hating how her voice grated on the flowing, musical language as if it were a mouthful of sand. "Speak then. Your silence can end here."

"I was able to get an audience with the garrison commander at the border to Quel'thalas. Thankfully, the elves are still as informed of the goings on of this world as they always have been," Clea stated, speaking as if she did not possess the same long ears and glowing eyes as she always had.

But, those eyes glowed crimson now, not blue. Those long ears were no longer flushed pink with blood and life. And the woman beneath them? The banshee that inhabited the corpse of her fallen body? Well, she wasn't at all the same. Was it fair to call her an elf? To even think of being part of the people that had borne her?

No. Not if Sylvanas wouldn't call herself the same either. Not anymore.

"Lor'themar Theron rules in Kael'thas' stead as Lord Regent. Little has been heard from the prince since he departed for Outland, but the Blood Elves remain confident he will return," Clea went on.

Sin'dorei. The word turned over in Sylvanas' mind. An echo of the old songs, of struggles many generations passed. What an appropriate name, though, to describe the pitiful remainder of the kingdom she had died for, and the people that had managed to survive.

"I'm sure Lor'themar is thrilled," Sylvanas drawled, feeling the ghost of a smile threaten at the thought of her former second in command ruling an entire nation.

"The commander didn't offer insight into that," Clea told her. "But he did confirm that there are no other full Lordearon regiments remaining in the north, only outlying survivors that haven't made their way to other kingdoms yet."

"Finally, some good news. What of Gilneas?" Sylvanas asked.

"Still shut away behind their wall. There are rumors of a sickness plaguing them from within, though," Clea reported. She shifted so that her hip bumped the creaking corner of the desk, though she seemed to take little notice of it.

"Not the plague that caused all of this?" Sylvanas questioned, though even utterly unbothered Clea would have been a bit more animated if she was reporting that.

"No," Clea confirmed with a shake of her head. "Lycanthrope."

Even her laugh sounded strange. It felt even stranger. "Serves them right. Fools."

Clea was silent. Silent in a way only her risen rangers could be. No breaths to disturb the air. No shuffling of feet. No beating heart. Perhaps, just waiting to be dismissed.

But Sylvanas was not ready for that yet. "I asked you for one more piece of news. I take it the commander was not forthcoming with that, or perhaps he doesn't know either?"

"She lives."

Two words Sylvanas had expected to hear. She was in no way surprised. But as to what she did feel, it was a cacophony of emotions that her disconnected body and soul were in no way prepared to process. But if there was anything that her living days lent to her that mattered now, it was that learned ability to keep her emotions from showing on her face. She remained, as ever, like the porcelain mask her new people had begun to paint on banners and sew into their cloaks, despite the turmoil that was going on inside of her. Looking as though she did not feel what she thought she no longer could.

But she did. 

"Lady Proudmoore leads a band of Lordaeron survivors across the sea in Kalimdor now. They have founded a settlement there called Theramore. Rumor is they worked with the Orcs to fight the Burning Legion there, and that they have stumbled upon the Night Elves," Clea went on to say.

"Night Elves," Sylvanas mused. The Thalassian rolled off her tongue with yet another word that came from old songs and legends only--Kal'dorei.

And now Jaina stood with them, these ghostly ancestors from her grandfather's tales. 

But more importantly, Jaina stood. She lived. She had escaped Dalaran before it too had fallen. 

But Sylvanas' body didn't know how to react to that. Relief should have washed over her, loosening tightened muscles and easing her mind. Pride should have welled up in her, lifting her shoulders just a little higher as she rejoiced in how strong and confident the young mage had become. How capable she was now, leading her own army. And something else. A longing to be there with her, to be the Sylvanas Jaina remembered. That one she could feel closest to what it should be. Her heart hurt, or maybe it was just the place where her she'd been run through. A heart that couldn't beat couldn't hurt, after all, and if there was one thing this body did correctly, it was phantom pains.

That had to be it, right?

"It is said that they defeated the demon lord that was summoned in Dalaran," Clea said after a moment.

All this hearsay, all this third-hand information. It was infuriating. Sylvanas was so used to being in the middle of the action. And she had been, yet again. But her little rebellion of sentient undead was only a small part of this massive picture, of a world thrown into chaos, greater than any it had ever known. 

But worst of all, Jaina had been out there, fighting this whole time. Doing exactly what Sylvanas had warned her against when they both yet lived and breathed, but exactly what she knew she would do anyway. And what was so bad about it was that she could still register the part of herself that longed to be with her. To drop everything and sail to Kalimdor.

Irrational. Emotional. Heated.

Everything this body was not. Everything that her continued existence in this world could no longer afford to be.

"Thank you," Sylvanas said as Clea’s silence rang out, deafening in it’s own way.

That was it. That was all. No details. She wouldn’t know if Jaina was happy. If she was truly safe. If she slept well. If she was warm at night. If, perhaps, another kept her warm. Or if she mourned her. Or missed her. Or if she even knew what had happened in Quel’thalas. What had become of her lover.

Or if she cared at all.

Clea nodded, taking that as her cue to leave, and blessedly shut the door behind herself on the way out.

It was one thing to be sure of her thoughts. To know they were her own. And Sylvanas knew that. She was sure, in this moment. No one else could feel like this. No one else could know this particular bit of torment. 

Oh, she had suffered. She had suffered as no one else could possibly suffer. She had been used. She had been betrayed. She had watched as her own ghostly hands delivered blows that helped to reduce the kingdom she had spent her life fighting for to ashes. She had watched the Sunwell itself become corrupted and fouled. 

But none of that prepared her for how she felt then. For the memories of Jaina’s warm smile and soft skin. For how she knew, all at once, that though she might remain in this world now, a ghost among the living, that she could never have that again. 

And that, despite it all, despite every battle she had fought, within and without herself--she would still want for it. She would still remember. She would still feel something, the same, but different. Disconnected, but present. An echo of love. Bells ringing in the distance, too far off to really pinpoint their direction. A sweet song that she didn’t know the words to, but desperately wanted to sing.

This was all that was left to her, and it was maddening.

But Jaina. Jaina was alive. She was intact. She wasn’t broken, or at least not in the way Sylvanas would always be. She was...she was herself, still.

And in the end, as Sylvanas stood and left her desk behind, moving out of her chambers and into the comfort of assessing her troops, of asking after the construction of this new city beneath of the old, of ensuring her defenses were prepared for any possible assaults that the outlying humans might make against their undead kin, a smile finally crept onto her lips. 

Jaina lived. She would thrive. She didn’t need Sylvanas to do any of that. She didn’t need a walking corpse. She was fine on her own. Sylvanas was content to just be a memory.

At least, until Jaina might find out her fate. But at least the violent seas between them might protect her from that a little longer. If Sylvanas still felt as though she could pray to Belore for that, she would.

But no, she did not. Instead, she found a quiet place to enjoy the music of her thoughts. Somber, though it might now.

But it was hers alone.


End file.
